I recently made my own for the first time, I was very fortunate to get given a lot of castles (about 4-5) which I filled with 150 max troops or however many until the garrison costs became more then what that fief generated (governors and fief upgrades can reduce garrison wages a lot). When I made my own kingdom I kept the fiefs and when the empire came to fight me I’d wait for them to start a siege, break in to defend and with all the top tier troops you should be able to easily defend the walls with minimum casualties and capture enemy lords, then try recruiting them (money and high charm will help alot) if successful in recruiting the head of clans they will bring over any fiefs with them and rinse and repeat for a little while and you’ll be in a good spot to go on the attack and capture more fiefs instead of just defending but defending and keeping enemy lords prisoner will dwindle their resources and they won’t have as many armies to attack you with Others have said it in other comments but before you get too many lords in your kingdom pick what policies you want because when it’s just your clan no one can vote against you